Aerial motor-vehicle.



H. B. LISTER.

AERIAL MOTOR VEHICLE. APPLIOATION rum) JAN. 30, 1911,

1,084,806. Patented Jan. 20, 1914.

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FIG I WITNESSES INVENTOIQ IN Pmomam DEmsoNA H. B. LISTER.

AERIAL MOTOR VEHICLE. 'APPLIOATION FILED JAN. 30, 1911.

1,084,806. Patented Jan. 20, 1914.

2 SHEETS-SHEET 2. FIG 2 FJGJ F76; 4 FM 5 FIG 6 IN DIQQDIQIA DEIQSONA-:,.1i-,-v,i ,IHIHW To all whomit mayconeemr-r Be it" known "that LI-IENRY" BERTRAM Lls'rnn, a citizen of *the' United 3 States, residinginthe city and county of Sam Francisco, State of Ga'Iifor'n-ia; haveinvented a new and useful Aerial Motor-Vehicle, of which the followingis a specification."

My 1 invention relates 'to a heavier than air flying mae'liine,in-'which planes are entirely dispensed with and their place taken bytu*oconcentric*screw propellers of opposite pitch,jn1t'1de o'f metal,woodor composition, which are made "to rotate in opposite' or morepropellers for drivingit in a horizontal= direction; which 1 are 1connected 1 to a horizontal shaft or shafts, which is connected to' theengine by means; of chain gears and sprocket wheels. 1 i There is! alsoa contrivan'ce "for changing the pitch of the ropellers while they arein motion, whic 1 is accomplishedbyhating the blades of the propellersseparate from the hub, which is hollow, by having a concentric shaft, ortwo rods, either inside or outside 1 the driving sh an; and which turnssynchronously wit it, and by means of which circularfldisks to whichthehlades 'ofthe pro ellers" are attached can' 'be turn'ed 'an theirpitch changed-.1 I also have'a device for chang1ng the pitcli' of "twopropellers simultaneously and to a "Similar xtent," while.in motion, bymeans; of four 'bo'lts running through four stationary nuts,- suppliedWith cog gears, which are all turned simultaneously by a wheel whiclr*isjcogged both on its. convex and concave circumference. Bymeans ofthese dei'i'cesf the respective' propellers can at will be changed from"propellers into gyroscopes andvice versa', or the pitch may be soadjustedtha't they partake of both these qualities. hus' the pitch of*the propeller on the"hoi'-izontalshaft can be set at zero,

and" it"will practically; be a gyroscope, the pitch of the; liftingpropellers can be a given Specification of Letters Patent.

fiTATES PATENT OFFICE.

nnnnriinnarnmlmsrnn, or San rnancrsco, CALIFORNIA.

J l J AERIAL MOTOR-VEHICLE.

Patented J an. 20, 1914..

Application filed January 30, 1911. Serial No. 605,369.

a large angle and all the power will be devoted to lifting the machinevertically, when the required height is obtained, the pitch of thelifting propellers can be reduced to a minimum, and the full powerthrown on the driving propeller by changing its pitch to a maximum.

My invention also consists of a central vertical shaft or rod, whichprojects upward into the air and to which a parachute is attached, whichis always partially opened and kept from flyin open by a light spring.Upon the machine 0 taining a downward velocity the parachute will 0 en.As the downward velocity decreases t 0 spring will close it to itsordinary position. The hub of the propeller is hollow, with twocircular, movable disks, to which the blades are attached. The bladesmay be made of wood, metal, composition, or hollow pressed steel.

I attain these objects. by the mechanism illustrated in the accompanyingdrawing in which- Figure 1 is a sectional elevation, of the entiremachine; Fi 2, plan elevation; Fig. 3, detail of hub o propeller; Fig.4, plan of disk; Fig. 5, side elevation of disks; Fig.

6, detail of collar which fits over disk; Fig.

7 ,elevation of blade of propeller.

Similar figures refer to similar parts throughout the several views.

The engine casing 1 and the standards 2 and the cross sections 3constitute the frame of the machine. The power generated by the engineis transmitted by means of the sprocket wheels 4 to the shaft 5 which isattached to the screw propeller 6, the blades of which are arranged topitch from zero to an angle of 40 degrees, by the mechanical deviceshown in the drawing, Fig. 1, and which is more fully explainedhereafter. This propeller acts as a roscope, when the blades are set atzero, an moves the machine in a horizontal direction when the bladeshave any pitch. The shaft 5 transmits power by means of two sprocketwheels 7 and 8 to the shafts 9 and 10 by means of chains to the sprocketwheels 11 and 12, the chain 13 from wheel 8 to wheel 11 being crossed soas to cause the shaft 9 to turn in a difi'crent direction to the shaft10; so

also the cogwheel 14 will turn in the oppo- 45 degrees. The cogwheels 14and15 being the levers, then the cogwheels 16 and 17 will eachreciprocally be the fulcrum, by which each is turned. The hub of thepropeller 18 is connected by the hollow shaft- 19 to the cogwheel 16 andthe hub of the propeller 20 is connected by the. hollow shaft 21 to thecogwheel 17. The screw propeller 18 will turn in the same direction asthe cogwheel 16 and the screw propeller 20 will turn in the oppositedirection. The shaft 19 is secured in position bythe ball-bearing 22 onthe top and by the ball-bearing 23 at the other end, and the shaft 21 issecured in po sition by the ball-bearing 24 at one end and by theball-bearing 25 between the two hubs. By these means the two screwpropellers are made to turn in difierent directions and to balance. eachother. By means of the nuts 26 the relative pitch of the two screwpropellers 18 and 20 can be adjusted to exactly balance each other, andthereby avoid any tendency for the car to rotate in opposition to theresistance of the propellers, which would occur from the difference inresistance in the atmosphere if they were notexactly equal. The nuts 26secure the bar 33 in a fixed position with respect to the bar 34, and bytheir movement up or down they de termine the pitch of one propellerwith re spect to the other, the two propellers having their pitchessimultaneously changed by the vertical movement of the bars 33 and3dupon the vertical movement of the supporting rods It will be apparentthat owing to the fact that one propeller works over the other propellerthat the lower propeller must-have a somewhat greater initial pitch toenable it to balance the torque of the upper propeller since it isturning in the air, which is moving from the upper propeller downwardlyat a velocity determined by the slip of the upper propeller. The bladeson all the propellers are separate from the hub and preferably are madeof pressed steel. They are each bolted to a separate movable disk 27 inthe hub, which can be turned through an arc of 40 degrees, by means ofcrank pins 28 slotted in the adjusting shafts 29 and 30, which areconcentric with the driving shafts. The blade need not have enoughmovement to reverse, butit must be capable of being turned to zero, atwhich point the propeller will practically be a gyroscope. In the hubsthe movable disks are attached by means of crank'pins setnear theirinner diameters in a rectangular slot in the lugs of the shafts 29 and30 which are moved by the raising or lowering of the ball bearings 31and 32 attached to the guide crosses 33 and 34, which simultaneouslychange the pitch of propellers 18 and 20 in an equal amount. The guidecrosses 33 and 34 are simultaneously raised or lowered by a means offour bolts 35 running through nuts recesses 36 which are sunk in thesupport, and have each a cogwheel on top and a collar on the bottom, sothat while they may turn they cannot rise or fall. These four cog gearednuts are surrounded by a cogwheel 37 which is cogged both on its concaveand on its co vex circumference. The outside circumfereneeis geared tothe cogwheel 38, so that on turning the wheel 39 the cogwheel 37 in turn'will rotate the four nuts 36, which will raise or lower the four bolts35 to which are attached the guide crosses 33 and 34, and this willrotate the four disks 27 in the propellers 18 and 20 so that all fourblades of the two propellers will change their pitch simultaneously andto the same extent. The rods 35 are adjusted by means of the flangedinternally threaded pinions 36. These pinions are secured to a suitablefixed cross 33 which is connected with the side frame 3. By asubstantially 7 similar device 40 the pitch of propeller 6 is changed asshown on the accompanying drawing. The hubs of the propellers are madehollow and preferably of cast steel or an alloy of steel and aluminum.The blades are separate from the hubs as shown in Fig. 7. The movabledisks 27 work on ball-bearings near the circumference to give all theleverage possible, which are shown in Figs. 3 and 6, and these aresecured to the hub by a collar with ball bearings which is bolted to thehub, and which laps over it to the extent of the hearing shown in Fig.6. The blades will always form parts of a screw except when they areplaced at zero, when they will be gyroscopes.

The rod 41 is stationary, being bolted at its lower end to the frame andhaving adjusting nuts, so that any slack in the upper propeller can becorrected from below while the machine is in motion, the upper end ofthe rod forms the apex of a parachute 42 which is formed like anumbrella only the supporting rods 43 connect to the lower circumferenceof the parachute. The parachute is kept partially closed by the spring44:, but is atthe same time sufficiently open so that upon the machineobtaining a downward velocity it will open by the pressure of the air,and will automatically close again as soon as the downward velocity isdecreased. The parachute is made of strong canvas or other suitablematerial, with thin steel supporting rods &3.

All the blades ofthe propellers can be set at zero, when starting theengine, and

when suflicient speed is attained the upper propellers can be givenpitch, while the propeller 6 remains at zero, the machine will then risein a vertical direction and by giving pitch-to the blades of propeller 6the machine will rise obliquely. The relative pitches of the liftingpropellers and the traction propeller 6 is such that by increasing theitch of propeller 6 to its maximum, the mac ine will rise at an angle of45 degrees; by, decreasing the pitch of the blades on propellers 18 and20 the obliqueness can be reduced until the machine will travel in ahorizontal line, the propellers 18 and 20 all the time maintaining'theirvelocity, but having only just sufiicient pitch to overcome theattraction of gravity., By taking the pitch of! the propeller. Gthemachine would remain poised in the air in one position, all thepropellers acting practically as gyroscopes and being practically rigidand immovable.

The machine is steered by the rudder 45 which is moved by pedals oneither side of the engine andconnected by cords 47 to it. The pedal 46on the left side with its cord connection 47 is shown in the drawing,the drivers seat being astraddle of the engine.

I claim: 7

1. In an aerial machine,a; pair of oppositely pitched concentric screwpropellers, one over the other, means to rotate said propellers inopposite directions, means to simultaneously vary the pitch of both ofsaid propellers, means to drive said machine forwardly, and a rudder forsteering said machine, substantially as described.

2. In an aerial machine, a frame, a pair of oppositely pitchedconcentric screw propellers, one over the other, means to simultaneouslyadjust the pitch of both of said propellers, means to rotate saidpropellers in opposite directions, a screw propeller having adjustableblades for driving said machine forwardly, and a rudder for steeringsaid machine, substantially as described.

H, E, STONE, L. p H. Annxasox.

